Don’t Cross the Streams of Consciousness

I sometimes struggle to write in this blog. I have been threatening for months to turn this web site into something other than a blog. Blogs have structure. I don’t fit into structures well. I never have. I consider this a personal virtue.

I write every day. My writing has been personal. Sometimes an “article” sneaks out of my keyboard or pen, and it gets edited and posted. That’s an anomaly. I really should turn this blog into something more like Twitter was before I left it, a reservoir for all my idle thoughts that I currently bother people with in Slack and text messages.

I’ve gotten back into photography. I take photos nearly every day. I don’t know the last day that passed without me taking photos. I’m working to get better as a photographer. I post my stuff out on Flickr because I hate Facebook. I’m proud of my work, but I feel weird posting my work there. I hoped to get occasional feedback from others trying to get better at photography. Very rarely, that happens. For the most part, it feels like I’m giving my content to a social media site. I have learned that I hate social media sites. I really should turn this blog into a portfolio for my work.

I continue pushing the boundaries of computer programming into something that more closely resembles math. I’ve lost all care for concrete projects and deliverables. All I truly care about is beautiful algorithms and moments of digital sublimity. That doesn’t really mesh well with a full-time job as a software developer where you’re expected to rapidly deliver actual products that people want to use. I really should turn this blog into a dumping ground for my latest mathematical learnings.

I read a lot of books. Most of them are non-fiction. There’s very little pattern to my selections. I tend to follow along with the currents of what I’m increasingly understanding to be autistic special interests. I tend to read with a pencil and a stack of sticky notes by my side, marking quotes and jotting down my thoughts as I make my way through the texts. Maybe this marginalia could be something useful? I should turn this blog into a dumping ground for my reading notes.

I’m playing a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Tying in with my interest in photography, I’ve been playing around with the in-game camera function to make compositions I find visually appealing or entertaining. I even got an SD card for my Switch so that I could get the photos off the machine without any social media accounts. These little images aren’t really photos, so where the fuck would I even publish such things? Regardless of how inane they are, they’re still a creative outlet that I’m enjoying. I should turn this blog into a place where I can post my Animal Crossing screenshots.

This isn’t a blog anymore. It’s dispatches from my brain. It’s points on a curve that I can’t be bothered to stop and calculate. It’s a still, flat composition loosely captured from a four-dimensional world. It’s the ephemera and marginalia for a peculiar but well-lived life. I don’t know what the fuck this thing is, but I’m going to let it have some creative energy to be whatever the fuck it turns out to be. Static things are so…constant and lifeless. Shapeshift along with me. Don’t codify convention into fossilized laws and structures. The only things that don’t change are dead.

The safety is off. I’m pretty sure this thing is loaded. Don’t come too close. I have no idea how it works, and that’s exciting as hell. I would say I won’t point it at you, but I’m not exactly sure about its shape or even what domain it operates on. Besides, the self is only a convenient illusion, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never quite worked out where the boundaries between me and you even are.